Call For Two Doctoral and/or Post-Doctoral Project Specialists - EU Horizon Project on Information Manipulation, Data Science and A.I.

Call For Two Doctoral and/or Post-Doctoral Project Specialists

EU Horizon Project on Information Manipulation,Data Science and A.I.

Department of International Relations at Ozyegin University is looking for two project specialists at the doctoral or post-doctoral level to take part in the Horizon-Europe Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society research project (DE-CONSIPRATOR) on the political and technological drivers of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) and their effects on social and political processes. Ozyegin University will be serving as the coordinator of a consortium, made up of 12 leading European universities.

Over the last years, Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) has grown into a significant threat to democracies around the world. Although individual governments and civil society actors have invested significantly toward countering this threat, the broader challenge across information ecosystems persists. DE-CONSPIRATOR consortium identifies that the problem persists due to an insufficient understanding of (i) the perpetrator-side motives and rationale for employing FIMI tactics, (ii) how to define why and how certain FIMI tactics ‘succeed’, and how ‘success’ can be measured and understood in this context, and (iii) domestic and transnational networks in the EU and associated countries that help spread foreign disinformation and interference operations, (iv) the true scope of advanced technologies such as deep-fakes and generative adversarial networks (GANs), and how they can be tackled using similarly advanced technologies.

Applications will be accepted until 22 September COB, first-round interviews will be held around early-October. Accepted applicants will be expected to commence work around early November, and commit for a full 3 years (until January 2027). Successful candidates have to be able to commute to, and operate from Dr. Unver’s lab at Ozyegin University in person. Neither position is suitable for remote work, or short-term commitments that fall short of the full 3 years.

Search Criteria

You are expected to work as a doc, or post-doc researcher and project management specialist at Dr. Akin Unver’s lab, which will be the main coordinator of the DE-CONSPIRATOR project. Candidates are expected to:

• Assist Dr. Unver in project management, deadline monitoring, work package progress tracking and coordinating an interdisciplinary, European network of scientists focusing on the behavioral and societal effects of disinformation and information manipulation.
• Help evaluate work package results produced by partner institutions in the form of computational, archival and survey data.
• Work in close collaboration with 12 DE-CONSPIRATOR partner organizations across Europe to collect and analyze computational, survey and archival data on social media accounts and network clusters disseminating FIMI-related content, such as disinformation, propaganda, and fake news operations.
• Conduct social network analysis of trans-European FIMI clusters and visualize the results.
• Perform content analyses using natural language processing (NLP) techniques, sentiment analysis, and other text analysis tools.
• Know, or learn algorithms, packages and workflows related to advanced GAN-related technologies including synthetic image detection, speech-to-text, gesture detection and similar newly emerging technologies.
• Support the development and analysis of a comprehensive multilingual survey to analyze the emotional and psychological impact of FIMI on individuals, the influence of FIMI on political and social beliefs, and the social and collective consequences of FIMI.
• Support project-related work, including preparing policy reports and actively disseminating research results.
• Support project-related work such as preparing policy reports and actively disseminating the research results.
• Be able to commute to, and operate from Ozyegin University (on-campus accommodation options are also available).
• PhD candidates do not have to start a new PhD at Ozyegin. They could be pursuing a PhD at a different university, but are expected to commute to, and operate from their offices at Ozyegin University for this position.

Profile of an ideal candidate

• Either a doc or a post-doc in a field relevant to computational social science, such as applied computer science, statistics, informatics, political science, communication science, psychology, sociology, international relations, or related disciplines, with a proven record (in terms of papers and/or GitHub performance) of familiarity with programming.
• Specialists in either R or Python are fine, however, keep in mind that the consortium is made up of labs and researchers that use both, which is why candidates are required to learn and operate in both languages.
• Familiarity with the literature on, and techniques/technologies of computational propaganda, Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), disinformation, misinformation, and fake news.
• A solid research background in computational social science, demonstrated by experience in the application and development of pertinent methodologies including, but not limited to, network analysis, machine learning, natural language processing, and text/data mining, image recognition.
• Familiarity with project management, with impeccable attention to detail and ability to micromanage and multi-task progress on objectives related to work packages
• Prior Tubitak, Horizon, or EU project experience preferred, although for exceptional researchers with demonstrable research or programming experience, this is not a requirement.
• PhD candidates can be affiliated with another university. There is no requirement to start a PhD at Ozyegin University. However, PhD candidates studying at another university will still have to work for this position from an office based in Ozyegin.

Offer

• 1 FTE, for 38 months with a planned starting date of 15/10/2023 and a completion date of 15/01/2027.
• Monthly salary based on Horizon-Europe scholarship amounts for Turkish institutions, calculated from the highest-possible competitive scale for Istanbul-based universities,
• Access to facilities of Ozyegin University, gym, library, cafeterias, labs, servers, and databases.
• Full range of private health insurance is offered by Ozyegin University.
• Accommodation support will be negotiated with successful candidates during the interview phase. Ozyegin University has newly-built dormitories and housing options.

Deadline: 22 September Friday COB Istanbul time

Application Package will be sent to deconspirator /at/ gmail (dot) com and should contain

• a CV,
• a short, 800-word statement of interest explaining past project experience: Tubitak, Horizon, ERC, NSF or similar, outlining tasks and roles performed.
• two recommendation letters (must be sent separately by professors to the above address)
• two writing samples (published work, or working paper close to submission),
• Optional: GitHub page or link to a data repository demonstrating past coding work